New York City has agreed to pay more than $4 million to the family of Akai Gurley, an unarmed African American man killed by a police officer in a Brooklyn stairwell in 2014, in order to settle a wrongful death suit, reports the Daily News.
The bulk of the tab is being paid by the city itself and the city housing authority, known as NYCHA. Gurley was killed in the Louis H. Pink Houses, a public housing project. The wrongful death suit by Gurley's family accused NYCHA of contributing to Gurley's death by failing to repair a lightbulb in the stairwell where the shooting happened. A much smaller sum of $25,000 is being paid by Peter Liang, the officer who shot Gurley.
The money will be put in a fund for Gurley's daughter Akaila. It will be invested, and is expected to provide her with around $10 million over her lifetime.
Liang was convicted of manslaughter for his role in Gurley's death, but the judge in the case controversially sentenced him to community service and probation instead of jail time. Liang's then-partner Shaun Landau was kicked out of the NYPD in the wake of the shooting.
New York City has recently made several other multi-million dollar payouts to police shooting victims. Just over a year ago, the city paid $5.9 million to the family of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man who was put in a fatal chokehold by NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo in July, 2014. Several months prior, it awarded $3.9 million to the family of Ramarley Graham, an unarmed Bronx teen shot and killed by an NYPD officer in 2012.
